The American Scheme

“It’s my father’s voice: the Oklahoma twang softened by his years in the Air Force, the provincialism partially covered over by an accretion of expertise; he’s reeling off one more interminable tale of a legal scam, a sharp deal, a guy who’s really got it made.”

The Road to Nowhere

Not long enough

The Invisible Man

In a world built for driving, I nearly walked into oblivion.

Referred to by my family and friends as “the cat piece,” this essay grew out of a trip to O’Hare Airport to pick up an air-freighted feline who now makes her home with us. The article is not primarily about the cat, however.

Doctor My Eye

“The view in the mirror was frightening: my eye was swollen and intricately bloodshot. My wife said it looked like it was about to pop out of my head. ... So  for the first time in my life  I called up a doctor because there was something wrong with me.”

One reader’s advice You may wonder why we provide Word and text versions. As Chicago Reader Web editor Whet Moser wrote in his blog about one of these pieces: “I advise you to print out the Word document and set aside time to read it, lest you end up engrossed in it at work and get fired on my account.”

Permissions Please feel free to read, save, copy and print out these articles, share them with your friends, and/or to link to this site. It is nice for one’s work to get read. ... Feel free to quote brief excerpts of the articles. That is covered by the Fair Use Doctrine, which is the law of the land. If you would like to republish an article in its entirety, or substantial portions of an article, please contact me.